Inspiration for the journey ahead

Tag: Children

My seven-year-old daughter used this as the headline to her letter to Santa that she spent her evening working on yesterday. The spelling mistake of ‘magical’ was secondary to a wonderful insight into a child’s mind that became clear in the way she progressed through her letter. In an almost apologetic manner she asked for, “What ever you can bring me.” before cleverly listing ‘things I would like’ in hope more than pressure of what she wanted for Christmas. But this lovely little message was just one of many that decorated her hand written letter to Santa.

Last night I was posed a question from my six-year old daughter about God. Before I go on with this story I just want to make something clear between you and me, religion is not a subject I am comfortable talking about on any blog, forum or anywhere in fact because I believe religion to be a very personal thing which causes much strife in our world. But this is something that really put a smile on my face yesterday. Meena, my daughter, asked, “ Where does God live.” So I replied in the only way I knew how, “In heaven waiting for all the good people in our world.” I realized my mistake the moment the words left my mouth, but like most men I always feel I need to add a little more information that is really required, or in this case I opened a door into a whole different world.

“So where do all the bad people go?” She asked. I became a little fidgety as I thought we would be discussing fluffy clouds and angels at this point but clearly something had sparked her curiosity. “Well,” I said trying to put it as delicately as possible, “They go to hell where the devil lives.” Clearly I had not learnt from my earlier mistake and opened another door down rather than a ladder back into the fluffy clouds area! The conversation went back and forth like this with me saying how bad the devil was and was desperately trying to keep the topic on a six-year old platform without descending into fires that rage through eternity, pain and torture etc. Obviously!

On the note of the Devil being bad she paused a little and came back with a response that in all my years it had never even crossed my mind. “I think the Devil is a good person.” Came the words that clearly rattled me, “Why do you do you say that Meena?” literally dreading the next words I waited for what seemed like an eternity. She finally gave her reply of, “Well, the Devil takes away all the bad people so that we don’t have to see them in heaven, so isn’t the devil helping god and all of us?” I looked at her and what she said had actually made sense so I replied, “I guess you have a good point Meena.” After this I sat watching her and just thought how beautiful it is that a child can see the good in everything, especially when I was only thinking of the negative. My six-year old daughter taught me another lesson last night and I love her for it. Thank you Meena.

In recent years we have heard much about visualization and the law of attraction. Whether you believe it or not there has to be something in we are what we believe. If there is something that you feel you missed early on in life, did not understand certain things or feel that you are just not destined to achieve anything then simply the truth is you will not.

We see throughout history the people who have succeeded in life. We glorify their achievements as though that were the only aspect of their life and before that they were living a charmed life just waiting for success. We often forget all the tears and hard work that led to them getting to that point. But above all else no matter how many times they failed, they knew that they only had to succeed once and the believed they could.

Spread your legs, Stretch your arms and open your heart.
You will realize that you are a star.

I came across this quote on one of the visuals below, a lovely mobile for children and I though the sentiment was beautiful. Not only in the context of children but for everyone. I truly believe that every one is a star and together we illuminate the sky. We may not always realize this but someone somewhere is influenced by the actions we do. Like a star in the distance, light takes time to travel through space. The star may not even know that it has illuminated another’s imagination, and it could be a small or life altering change. It’s still a change.

So even if in your life you feel that what you are doing is going unnoticed, understand that the impact you have had on lives has been spectacular and beautiful. For everyone passes on the light that burns within, some feel the light glowing through them whilst others are not so aware. But each burns brightly and somewhere in the world your light is now reaching a far a soul just when they need your influence, just when they need a change and it could’ve been something you did many years ago. As your beauty and light will shine through eternity.

My daughter, who is 6, is probably the comedian of my two children. My son loves a joke but is a bit more serious and sensitive. Not sure where he gets that from! But my daughter is always trying to play ‘tricks’ as she calls them and is often clowning around in one way or another. The other day we received a letter from the school talking about a break out of head lice. Not a very nice subject but it did bring back memories of the school nurse when I was a kid and the physical abuse she used to give us as she rummaged through our scalps. I always recalled she was almost disappointed if she came up empty. So with this news I told my daughter that we would need to check on a daily basis to make sure.

Fortunately it’s been all clear. But this morning as she was leaving for school I told her that tonight I will check her to make sure. She didn’t look very happy and I understand why. For a child five minutes seems like an eternity so I tried to give her an explanation that I thought would let her understand. We are going to Australia next month to see my parents, brother and family who moved their over four years ago. So, in my ultimate wisdom thought it would be a good reason for the check. So I said, “I need to check as we can’t take any lice with us to Australia can we?” She turned towards me and I could see something obviously rattling around her little mind until a light clearly went on inside and she replied, with a straight face and complete sincerity, “Why? Because you didn’t buy them a ticket!” I had no answer and just laughed!